How pine marten recovery in Britain is affecting both red and grey squirrel populations.
The pine marten and squirrel dynamic illustrates the complexity of welfare thinking in ecological contexts. Individual grey squirrels killed by pine martens experience the same acute welfare harm as any predation event. Yet the population-level effect — reduction in the invasive grey squirrel population that is driving red squirrel extinction — has conservation and welfare benefits for red squirrels as a species. A welfare perspective that considers both individual animals and populations in ecological context must hold these tensions without dismissing either. Natural predation as a population management mechanism generally causes less sustained suffering than human-administered control methods.